Essay 34: Racially Controlling the Body

Flavin’s essay on the current challenges presented against African-American women’s rights presented a view on current legislation that completely irritates me. The concept of regulatory practices on birth control and funding based on the amount of children a woman has is… Unnerving, to say the least.

The focus on low-income women–with a more direct focus on African-American women stereotypes–makes the laws more incredulous. In the current day and age, however, it doesn’t come as much of a surprise to me. The trend in the past few years has been incredibly unfriendly to women across the board, especially when concerning reproductive rights. Despite the few attempts that have littered our legislative history to promote more autonomy for the woman when it comes to her body, there have been so many more against it. In 2003 the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act passed with made intact dilation and extraction (IDX) abortions illegal in the States. While, yes, this abortion is controversial because of how developed the fetus is, it’s actually one of the safer forms of abortion for women. It results in the fewest amount of complications for the woman, but the issue is the “fetal life”. (I’d apologize for how pro-choice I am and my views on “fetal life”, but, you know).

Another things that has popped up in recent history is the whole South Dakota trying to make abortion illegal and go against federal law. Crazy.

So yeah, the idea of laws regulating the reproductive rights of woman by making federal funding they receive be set at a particular limit regardless of the amount of children they actually have, doesn’t surprise me. It’s irritating, but not surprising.